Death in the middle
Published: Wed, 05/21/14
Another tale from my mis-spent youth. My scoutmaster had an old
motorcycle in his shed which dated from around 1960 but hadn't
been ridden in a decade or so. The bike was an Ariel Leader, a
rather unusual machine with a full metal bodywork and a 250 cc two
stroke twin engine. In the late 70s I bought it from him with a
couple of friends. We were going to restore it and take it to
classic shows which were becoming popular even then. As is often
the way the bike just got taken to pieces and left in boxes in the
garage. Then a few years later when I had got more confident as a
mechanic I put it back together, albeit leaving off a lot of the
body work and used it as a runaround. It was different and rather
fun.
On one occasion I was going through Golders Green on a fairly main
road but it a very suburban area so there was a 30 mph limit (not
that people took as much notice of speed limits as they do today).
I stopped at the lights and a Laverda pulled up alongside me. At
the time these were very highly regarded performance bikes and this
one had a 1000 cc three cylinder engine. I certainly wasn't
going to have a burn up with him, even if I had been riding my
Yamaha 650 he would have left me for dead (figuratively speaking),
although what happened next could have made the 'dead'
quite literal.
The lights changed and the instant the bottom one went green the
Laverda leaped across the junction in what seemed like fractions of
a second. Meanwhile I was still building up revs and easing a 20
year old gearbox into first gear. Then, just as I started to nose
across the white line a car came from the left, shot across the red
light at at least 60mph, maybe much faster. The car missed the
taillight of the Laverda by inches and luckily I had not made any
significant progress into the junction. So both the fast and the
slow lived to ride another day. However, if I had been riding my
Yamaha, which had average performance for a bike of that day, I am
pretty sure I would have been dead because I would probably have
been half way across at the crucial moment.
Apart from being an example of how life is un-predictable and we
need to make the most of every moment this recollection has also
made me realise that sometimes 'average/normal/middle of the
road' is the worst thing or place to be. Being really
authentic and true to yourself may save you a lot of wasted effort
and heartache compared to being all things to all people. I have a
dilemma along these lines for the development of the Stav Centre,
to what extent to make it distinctively a 'Stav Centre'
(not that there has every really been one before so there is no
model to follow as such) and to what extent to make it a generic
martial arts training facility for various instructors to use? I
do have someone keen to use the place for a kickboxing class and,
while I am very happy to encourage anyone to teach martial arts in
the way that is right for them, I need to be sure that the
environment we are creating reflects what I want to teach from the
moment a potential student enters the premises. It would certainly
help finacially to share our premises with other instructors but
there is a big difference between the needs of a MMA gymn and a
Stav training place. Another decision to make. In the meantime we
are making good progress with the redecoration internally and
externally. If you want to see how we are getting on come to the
next course on the 7th of June http://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html
regards
Graham
PS Links for Ariel Leader
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Leader and Laverda
http://www.motorcycleclassics.com/classic-italian-motorcycles/laverda-1000-3c.aspx#axzz32KWxXHjK
in case you want to know more.